


Girl-Prince and Hero-King

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: (sort of), Alcoholism, Basically the answer to the question 'what the hell did lucina even do in two years', Canon Compliant, Gen, Sorta-Continuation of End Days, The answer: become an alcoholic, Written in Vingettes, discontinued
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-13
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-14 19:48:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7187639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A continuation to 'The End Days.' What happens directly after the events of chapter one of the game, following Lucina, as Marth, as they wander through the countryside. Will pick up with the events of the second half of the game, with a few twists.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 6 April 1415

**Author's Note:**

> me, flicking the lights on and off: welcome to hell! welcome to hell! welcome to h

It's early in April. The sixth, Marth thinks, because he's rarely wrong about dates. It must be very early on the sixth, because it's still dark and the singed forest's embers still glow in the low light. Marth stamps some out under his boot before they can start a full-blown forest fire.  
  
It's early in April. His stomach is lurching from the jump through time. He strips off his worn leather gloves, drops them carelessly on the ground, and pushes his mask onto his forehead. The jagged, hasty cut of his hair brushes the back of his neck. Tears drip down his cheeks. It's early in April, and his parents are alive.  
  
He lets himself cry about it after he retches the contents of his stomach into the bushes, and then sits for a long time, staring at the carpet of pine needles and leaves as the sun stretches its rays over the horizon. He lets the tears dry on his cheeks.  
  
He washes his face in a nearby stream, untouched by the quake or by the Risen. He runs wet fingers through his hair, cleans the grime and salt from his face, flushes the redness from his eyes. He replaces his gloves first, then his mask. That's enough crying.  
  
He fills his flask with water and secures it to his belt. It hangs opposite his sword, Falchion, the very same blade his father held in his final moments. The rich leather wrap of the hilt is faded and worn, pale where Marth's hands and Chrom's hands before his had gripped it like the lifeline it was. The metal bonding blade to hilt is tarnished and scratched, but the blade itself will never dull. It is a bit dirty, marred with blood and dirt, but it will not break. Marth vows to clean it when he has the chance, and for now, slides it into the worn leather scabbard with frayed stitching and faded color.  
  
Marth clutches the hilt as he walks. It is going to be a long, long journey.


	2. 6 April 1415

Marth is tired. He is hungry, his bones ache. That isn't unusual. But the sun is cruel in its shining, and Marth has already drained his flask. What he wouldn't give for a trough of well-water to dunk his head into— or frozen strawberries, still sharp with the magic that went into cooling them.  
  
Frozen strawberries under the live oak in the gardens. His favorite training shirt— a linen curiass held up on his skinny chest with thin ropes, enough shirt it could be called so and the closest he could get to being rid of one in the Ylissean summer heat. He would've preferred going bare-chested, but after he hit thirteen, that suddenly became inappropriate. So very unfair.  
  
He wants, for a second, to take off his breastplate and shove his blasted dark-blue tunic into his pack, tie up the sleeves of his undershirt past his shoulders and maybe the sweltering of the binding around his less-than-ample chest will be a little more bearable. But that is work, and he would have to stop.  
  
He does not. He cannot stop yet.


	3. 6 April 1415

He stops at a tavern along the Northroad that night. It is the sixth. Still April, though it feels like July.  
  
He has money. A few silvers, enough to buy a chilled mug of ale and a bit of bread. He sits in the back corner, resting his elbows on the sticky wood of the table, and drinks his ale and eats his bread and wonders where he'll sleep tonight. The cook takes pity on him and makes him a bowl of soup with peas and onions and carrots, and doesn't let him leave until he's eaten all of it. He appreciates the meal.  
  
The ale and bread cost him six silvers. He has three left. He tries to pay for the soup with it, but the cook doesn't let him. He does not fight this, and leaves after expressing his thanks.  
  
A farmer with a wagon full of straw has stopped at the inn for the night. Marth climbs beneath the tarp stretched over the frame and sleeps there. As long as he sleeps with one eye open, and keeps in mind how long it's been, he'll catch a few hours of sleep and leave before sunrise.  
  
He is, nonetheless, grateful for the sweet-smelling straw and the conveniently-parked wagon. It is far better than the ground.  
  
Though he wouldn't mind sleeping on the ground, had he not had to do it alone. Not for the first time, it makes him miss his friends.


	4. 7 April 1415

It is the seventh. Marth is just outside Enderwick, three hours by horseback from Ylisstol, sitting with his back to a fencepost and getting rained on.  
  
I hate rain, he thinks bitterly. He doesn't, not really— in perspective, this heavy rain is a blessing to one who hasn't seen weather this intense since he was twelve. Once Naga died, everything stagnated. The motion of the world, the environment, is a breath of fresh air.  
  
Still.  
  
But beggars cannot be choosers. He tugs the hood of his cloak over his head. It's wool, a thick Ylissean weave, and it's warm, but he has never wished more for the heavy silk of his mother's coat. It's going to smell awful when the rain is done.  
  
The road is too muddy for him to travel without his boots getting sucked clear off his feet. He waits.


	5. 13 April 1415

It is the thirteenth. He turns twenty-one in another week. He writes letters he cannot send.  
  
He writes on discarded parchments, the backs of jobs posted on town bulletin boards. He does the job, takes the parchment so he can write. He has a stubby pencil in his pocket— it will do.  
  
He takes shelter in taverns on his way north. The money he earns buys him cheap drinks and a bit of food. The drinks make his hand shake, but his core buzz with warmth. He is hungry and tired, but less lonely when he drinks. Sometimes he pretends his friends are there, too. It never lasts.  
  
Mostly, he writes to himself. Take your own advice, you drunken fool, he writes. His hands are shaking. He writes with his left hand despite being right-handed. He has smashed most of the bones in that arm by now. It would be a more useful arm if they cut it off, but there was no safe way to do it at the time— he is stuck. Oh well.  
  
He has written to his father. His brother. His mother. His cousins. His aunts. They will never see the words he writes— he tosses them out when he finishes his brandy. But it makes him feel better to write them, anyway.  
  
He writes to Saria. Her absence aches, but it gives him hope. This is not the end.


	6. 16 April 1415

Regna Ferox is cold. Marth must be colder.  
  
So he tells himself, but he is only human. His leather gloves and quilted shirt and blued armor do what they can to keep out the chill. It is still cold.  
  
He is not used to such cold. It snows in Ylisse, but never this much, never all at once. He tries his best not to let his teeth chatter when he meets the Khans.  
  
It is a bit of a misunderstanding that pits him against Basilio's champion just in time for the tournament. Marth's Feroxi phrases are rusty, you understand, and his mouth is numb. He did not come to fight, he tried to say.  
  
He should have known that wouldn't work.  
  
Marth is used to fighting for his life— this is how he fights in Ferox's grand arena. Falchion keeps him going. He has not questioned why, but he feels his wounds healing before he moves. That would've been useful in his day. His muscles assume it will be the same here. It is too much, and the battle is over once Lon'qu is on his back.  
  
He cedes, lowering his head. It takes Marth a minute to recognize the end of the battle— Risen, after all, do not cede.  
  
If Basilio has noticed this, he doesn't catch on. So Marth helps Lon'qu back to his feet.  
  
"You fought well," he says. Ke'tu taught him good sportsmanship, and that, he has not forgotten.  
  
Lon'qu grunts, and yanks his hand away. Marth does not bother.  
  
He stays in Ferox for a month. It does not get any warmer— perhaps he just gets used to it.


	7. 16 May 1415

It is May. Flavia shows up to the tournament with Chrom as her champion.  
  
Marth, inwardly, groans and slaps his hands to his forehead. Of course this would happen to him. Just his luck.  
  
He cannot help but watch them from the other side of the arena. Chrom stands tall and proud, fights with a determined glint in his eye— he is young and strong and exactly what a prince of Ylisse should be. He fights with Robin, who sizes up the battlefield in seconds using skill it took Marcus years to learn, their backs together as if they've fought for years.  
  
Marth is surprised to learn that Chrom, on his own, is not a hard fighter to beat. He was trained as a prince, after all, and has not learned that not everyone will be as chivalrous when fighting him as his trainers.  
  
Marth had to let go of notions of fair combat when he was about fourteen. He had forgotten how odd that would be in a time of peace, albiet a fragile peace.  
  
But Robin has no illusions of such in this arena. They double-team him, and it is the blast from Robin's Thunder at his feet that finally hits him hard enough for the match to end. They do not fight to the death in this tournament.  
  
Chrom helps him up, and smiles. "You fought well," he says. "If it weren't for Robin, I bet you'd have beaten me."  
  
 "You're right," Marth replies. Chrom was not expecting that, and his smile falters. Clearly he was expecting Marth to politely disagree, and say he wasn't so bad himself. Marth sees no point in lying to him, even if he is older than Chrom at this point.  
  
He vanishes after the match. He does not say goodbye.


	8. 17 May 1415

It is the seventeenth— of May, this time. Marth lingers in Ylisstol, glancing out the tavern window at the castle every now and then, too nervous to take more than little sips of his brandy. It is too early to be drinking, some would say. Marth would ignore them.  
  
It's supposed to help his stomach settle, and isn't doing anything of the sort. It doesn't help that he knows what is to happen.  
  
It is the seventeenth. Tomorrow night, Emmeryn will be killed, the Fire Emblem (what Plegia thinks is the Fire Emblem, anyway) stolen, and so will begin the war that takes parents from children and sends the south of the continent into chaos.  
  
He will sneak into the castle tomorrow night. That is the night Chrom is injured— an assassin sneaks through the walls and Chrom loses his left leg, just below the knee. Marth has heard the story many times. Chrom embellishes, but Robin told him the story as-is. He isn't certain how the Shepherds will get from Ferox to Ylisstol in two short days, but they have always managed in the past.  
  
He remembers the dream he had. He will not be helpless this time. He will change things.


	9. 18 May 1415

He succeeds.  
  
It does not feel like he does.  
  
He knows too well that time tends to write itself the same way. This is not the end of things.  
  
He will not see Chrom again for close to three years.


	10. 20 May 1415

Marth takes the broken halves of his mask, wrapped in a soft red handkerchief. He tucks them in his pocket. He has forgotten his birthday for a month now— he is twenty-one, give or take.  
  
He buys himself a drink and a cabbage-and-lamb sandwich. He gambles with a pair of boistrous sellswords he will likely never see again, loses four sovereigns and wastes another six trying to win at the card game— what is it called? Tricky Grace? He could make many jokes about it with his name, but doesn't.  
  
It's a good birthday. He hums the song to himself, quietly as he dares, as he nurses the cut above his left eye. Covering it with a cloth has done him well so far, as it is deep, but he doesn't think he'll need to get it stitched. He may keep the patch anyway. It's less clumsy than a mask.  
  
He dozes with his head to the tavern wall. He wishes himself a happy belated birthday.


	11. 2 June 1415

Marth has always liked masked hero stories. Stories where a knight or adventurer hides his (or her) face in the name of justice, going about his civilian life thankless and saving lives under anonymity. There was some kind of romantic allure about it— it may have been Owain's influence, playing heroes with Marcus and Cynthia so often before all this began, but Marth thought himself separate. Still, he indulged sometimes in the silliness. Usually when they needed a monster to fight.  
  
So he supposes he is one, now. He has, after all, done quite a few hero jobs. He has driven away bandits and found lost sheep, and it is a life that will take some getting used to, but the coin lets him drink. He visits the town tavern every evening. Usually he chats with the barkeep, enough to where it feels almost like leaving a new friend when he has to leave. It is saddening, but he's sure that's what keeps him from going mad.  
  
He has been drinking quite a lot. Not in excess every night, nor indeed every night, but often. It helps, he finds. He no longer feels the chill in his fingers and toes, the weariness on his shoulders. It makes wherever he is feel, if only for a minute, like home.


	12. 12 July 1415

Marth has found his way to the southeastern swamps of Ylisse. He hates it even more than he did the bitter cold of Ferox.  
  
It is here he makes a friend.  
  
It is not the mosquitos that sting him relentlessly— no, he would rather not be friends with bloodsucking insects. If he wanted to do that, he'd go to the Ylissean court. He finds his friend when he is knee-deep in muck, shoving branches out of his way, bare arms covered in scratches and bug bites and his skin covered in a veneer of sweat and grime.  
  
All this to deliver a package. He has half a mind to ask compensation from his client, but he won't. He's doing this because he likes helping people. Damn his good heart. Damn his father's influence. Damn it all.  
  
He squints at the sweat-stained map in vain. He has made muddy fingerprints and creased the parchment. There was supposed to have been a bridge, somewhere. He has clearly missed it. His orienteering leaves much to be desired.  
  
It is then he meets the hound. It's a big one, as far as dogs go— the kind they use to hunt bears in Ferox. He wonders what it's doing here.  
  
It is smiling at him. He smiles back, and pets the dog. Its eyes are looking in two different directions. One is focused on Marth, and the other appears to be elsewhere. Marth won't bother questioning the dog about it. It's a dog.  
  
The dog greatly enjoys this. His tail flaps, spraying mud absolutely everywhere. Marth shoves the map in his shirt before it can be too badly damaged.  
  
"I don't suppose you know where Cricket's Crossing is," he asks the dog weakly.  
  
The dog barks with his whole body— a big-dog bark, that boofs. He runs off, and leaves Marth to continue trudging.  
  
About ten minutes later, the dog returns with a signpost in his mouth. Marth has to tilt his head to read it. Blackbrook Marsh Center, it reads. Ylisstol, S. 43 miles. Cricket's Crossing, E. 5 miles. Fort Gulliver, NE. 12 miles. Fedden's House, you are here.  
  
The dog boofs around the signpost, and runs off again. But this time he waits for Marth to catch up before he does.  
  
There is no Fedden, but Marth would imagine that if he existed, he would be greatly displeased. He fixes the sign anyway.  
  
The dog wags his tail. Marth pets him, scratches behind his ears. The dog flings more mud everywhere. Marth cannot imagine he's in much better shape.  
  
"Thank you for your help," Marth says. "You can go back to your master now, dog."  
  
The dog boofs. It nuzzles Marth, and trots in place. Marth has never had a dog, but he imagines he does now.  
  
Marth names him Blackbrook— Blackie for short.


	13. Good Dog

Blackie is a good dog.  
  
Marth has always loved dogs, but he's never gotten to own one for one reason or another. But he is certain that Blackie is the best dog of all dogs. He is good and soft and large and full of love. Marth loves him.  
  
"I love you, Blackie," he says to Blackbrook the wall-eyed boof dog, in all solemnity, while he is very drunk and probably sweating pure whiskey. "You are a good— hic— good doggie, and I love you."  
  
Blackie boofs.  
  
 "But d'you, do you know," Marth continues, "Do you know that I love you too? You're a good doggie, yes— yes you are, but d'you feel my love?"  
  
He hugs the dog. Blackie wags his tail, complacent. "I— hic— hope you do, Blackie," Marth tells him. "You're a good doggie— hic— I hope you feel loved. Feeling— hic— loved, it's, it's a good feeling. Love it."  
  
Blackie wags his tail. One eye looks at Marth, and the other is looking at the star-dotted night sky. He boofs.  
  
"You love me too— hic— Blackie?" Marth slurs. "S'good. I love you. You're— hic— you're a good dog."  
  
Blackie is contented. He is a very good dog.


End file.
